The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for construction and manufacturing, and more particularly, to a unique system for characterizing carrier elements disposed in rigid structures so that these carrier elements can be identified and distinguished from one another, and so that the individual characteristics and/or location of any one or more carrier elements may be preassigned, classified, and/or stored for retrieval according to a preset plan.
According to the invention, the carrier elements may be signal carriers such as electrical wires, fiber optic cables, tubes or hoses for vacuum or air pressure signals, power carriers such as electrical conductors or fluid power lines, or other carriers or conductors such as pipes, tubes, or hoses for water, liquid samples, refrigerant, or fuel, for example.
The characterization system of the invention permits what are herein termed "carriers" to be uniquely identified by means of a code based on a system that implicitly or otherwise individualizes each carrier and a location/function code describing the characteristics and location of such carrier, such as its origin, its destination, the pathway it follows within the structure, and its function. These codes can be imprinted on or associated with the carrier, wholly or in part, and part or all of the code can be placed in memory for subsequent use when it is desired to identify the particular coded carrier for some purpose, such as repair or replacement.
The system preferably includes maintaining an array of codes uniquely identifying each carrier and a location record identifying the characteristic path followed by the carrier within the structure so that the carrier may, after installation, be readily found within the structure, and when the carrier is found, be identified as being associated with certain equipment. Other points along the path the carrier follows within the structure can also be determined immediately.
In a preferred form, the cable, wire or other cable is encoded by a bar-code or other optically machine readable ("OMR") code that coordinates with information such as a location record applicable to the carrier. In one embodiment, the invention enables computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing ("CAD/CAM") techniques to be used in laying out an intended path for all the carriers to be emplaced within a building structure. After layout, a given length of the carrier is dedicated to a certain application, the carrier is cut to length, and connectors are affixed to it. The carrier is then encoded with information sufficient to identify it and its intended path within the building, and the carrier is shipped to the proposed installation. At this time, the carrier may be installed according to the location plan embodied or described in the code established by the computer or computer operator. Thereafter, it may be found when needed for maintenance or replacement. In the alternative, once found, the carrier may be positively identified and its attributes determined by reference to the original installation plan.
According to present building construction practices, and referring to telephone cables by way of first example, it is customary to lay or "string" so-called "gray" cables throughout a building, using such cables to connect telephone to a master telephone terminal within the building. Thus, a telephone company provides a telephone terminal within a building and, within that same building, many of these sheathed telephone cables extend out to the various rooms or offices within the building. In actuality, so-called "gray" cables may not only be sheathed in a gray material, but also commonly in black, white, blue, orange, or translucent coating sheaths.
Each "gray" cable typically comprises a sheathed or encased array having fifty (50) individual conductors arranged into twenty-five (25) pairs, such cable being known customarily as a "25 pair cable." While 25 pair cables is common, cables may have as many as 900 or more pairs, also called "twisted pairs," of conductors. Each one or more pairs of conductors services one instrument terminal, or a plurality of terminals on a telephone, and each cable serves a particular instrument within a room. The individual pairs of conductors within the cable are themselves color coded so as to indicate the terminal or phone number they service.
Although each of these individual pairs of conductors is color and pattern coded so that one is able to identify the respective near and far ends of such pair in any given installation, insofar as it has been able to be determined, there has up until now been no way to determine the location of the other parts of the so-called "gray" cable within the building itself. In other words, in a typical installation, cables having exterior sheaths covering the conductor pairs and extending from the telephone company equipment in the various rooms and suites, or otherwise within the building, are simply not individually marked so as to be distinguishable as among themselves. These cable are customarily disposed in conduits dedicated to telephone cables, but in many other cases, are trained between walls, in troughs, along studs, through conduits, in other wireways, in false ceilings, or otherwise within the building.
Further, according to present day practice, when an installation is altered, or a new installation is made, it is customary to leave the existing "gray" cable in place within the building structure, either because no record of the pathway or location of the "gray" cable has been made, or for other reasons. In other words, quite surprisingly, when an installation is made, cable is strung or attached individually for a known application, and while the whereabouts of both cable ends thereof are necessarily known, the routing of the cable itself is done arbitrarily as job conditions indicate, and the exact location of the cable's entire intermediate length is not recorded, and hence is often simply not known after the cable has been installed and the worker have left the scene of the installation.
Consequently, when wires or cables providing telephone service are to be removed or altered, no effort is made to open up the cable conduit system or the like and remove the old cable, because, beyond the immediate end areas, there is simply no way to distinguish one "gray" cable from another. Unused cable cannot then be found and retrieved and/or salvaged for reuse or otherwise. Such unused cable is customarily simply abandoned in place within the building.
As the size and complexity of the building or other structure involved becomes greater, proper use of dedicated cable space as well as minimizing the waste of otherwise useful cable increase in importance. Frequently, there are so many cables in older buildings that space of considerable value is lost without recourse.
To a greater or lesser extent, the typical practices illustrated above are applied generally to most kinds of electrical and optical conductors, and also to computer cables and other wiring of various kinds. These present practices are also followed elsewhere in building construction, such as with thermostat or other control wire or tube applications, and with fiber optic bundles used with computers, for telephones or in other applications. Such practices may also be adopted for future communication or power carrier systems that are not yet fully developed. Hereinafter, therefore, the expressions "carrier" or "carrier element" will often be used to designate generically not only electrical power carriers, but also power or signal carriers of all kinds, i.e., electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, vacuum, fiber and other optical, acoustic, fluidic, and other carriers generally.
The present invention can be used in numerous applications in a wide range of building structures, such as a large residential unit, a hospital, a shopping mall, a factory, a school, or an office. Other structures for which this invention is suitable include airplanes, automobiles, or other complex rigid structures utilizing various electrical, optical, or other carriers or conductors following a plurality of sometimes arbitrary pathways.
The present invention provides a number of simple methods for identifying and recording the pathways of carriers installed within a building or other structure. According to a presently preferred form of the invention, the structure in question is subdivided into a grid or other pattern defining a matrix or series of identifiable spatial coordinates. For each carrier or bundle of carriers, such as a cable, a path defined by an origin, a destination and, in practice, at least one (and usually many) intermediate "way point(s)" is selected A record of those location points is then made. Thereafter, a characteristic location list or code indicative of the particular origin, destination, and way point(s), if any, applicable to that carrier element is thus developed.
The code is expressed in a simply shorthand form, such as in bar code or alpha-numeric form, and imprinted at spaced apart points on the carrier element exterior. Then the cable is installed according to the location point plan contained in the record. At any time thereafter, therefore, when access is had to the exterior of the cable or carrier element, the code can be readily found. This establishes the identity of the carrier, and the location record will provide the information needed to perform maintenance, repair, or replacement. Preferably, the location record is embodied in a memory accessible to the bar-code reader so the reader can provide location information in humanly readable form. With the advent of low price, reliable, portable, and simple-to-use computers and/or bar-code readers, for example, the problem of developing, storing, and retrieving complex location codes is solved in part by the preferred practice of having a computer generate and retain a record of all of the characteristic location information applicable to each of the carriers within the building, and a code that correlates the record to the carrier element. These are stored for access through the code so that knowing the carrier's identity enables its location to be disclosed and vice versa.
In those instances wherein the carrier is encoded at a location remote from the point of installation, there may be intermediate storage of the location record of cable coding information. For instance, after a building plan is completed and the intended location of the cable is determined and recorded, a cable may be coded, cut to length and connectors added, all at a location remote from the building. Thereafter, when the cable is delivered to the structure, access is had to retrievable memory containing the location record and code information, such as the memory of a computer or like device, for example. This location record information is then used in performing the installation. Thereafter, the location information remains in, or is placed or replaced in, the memory to simplify subsequent efforts to find the cable when that is deemed necessary for repair, replacement, maintenance, or otherwise.
In the preferred form of the invention, known forms of codes are used, particularly bar-codes and alphanumeric codes. Other forms of codes, such as codes comprised of arbitrary, reproducible arrangements of colored solid or interrupted lines, or other machine readable codes, may also be used. In addition, invisible code carriers such as electromagnetic tapes or other non-optically readable code carriers may be used.
While any given encoded term, in order to be useful, must include terms sufficient to distinguish it from all other terms of the same codes, as has been pointed out and as will appear further, any given code need not necessarily contain a separate carrier identity term. Such an identity term would be necessary if two or more cables had exactly the same location at all points throughout their path, for example. Implicitly, therefore, any one code may be thought of as having two different functions, i.e., an identifying function and location record function. At the conceptually simplest level, the code may be considered a single code having both location and identity-disclosing functions. Thus, a separate identity code term is not necessary if no two location codes are the same; the identity code is thus implicit in the location code. As long as each code is uniquely identified with one individual carrier, then the identity function is present and a proper use of the invention can be made. Of course, the code may, but need not, contain information about every location point. In such cases, the carrier is uniquely identified, but as much information about it as is desired is contained in a remote memory of any desired degree of complexity or capacity. As long as the code permits unique reference to a unique carrier, and the location record applicable to it can be found, the code is useful.
In view of the failure of the prior art to provide useful, unique cable coding, installation, memory and retrieval apparatus and methods, it is an object of the invention to provide improved carrier installation methods and apparatus for use in buildings or other structures.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved building method which includes laying out a plurality of paths to be followed by various carriers within a grid formed by the structural or other components of a building or other rigid structure, associating each proposed carrier path with a characteristic location record for such carrier, preparing a record of an array of such proposed locations, accessibly encoding each carrier with a characteristic code referable to such record, installing each carrier in its assigned location, and retaining the plan and the record for subsequent association with the code to permit retrieval for maintenance, modification, or removal at a subsequent time.
Another object of the invention is to provide a cable or like carrier encoding, recording, and decoding system that is simple to use and compatible with existing encoding and reading equipment.
A further object of the invention is to provide a system that includes a method of record keeping for the locations of various carrier elements disposed within a building or other rigid structure.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a carrier installation and maintenance method that may be readily accomplished using a computer generated, characteristic bar-code to identify the characteristics of sheathed cables or other conductors or carriers.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a carrier encoding and installation system that uses known equipment, modified or unmodified, in a novel, simple and affordable application of bar-coding.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a carrier encoding, recording, and decoding system wherein a carrier contains a visible, contrasting field serving as an optical background for an imprinted, visible code indicative of the identity of the carrier and providing a record of all parts of its location, or indicating where access to such location information or records may be found.
Yet another object of the invention is to allow for the ready storage of other such data regarding a carrier, such as its length, functional type, type of "connectorization," its diameter, age and the frequency with which a particular carrier may have been repaired or one or more of its characteristics altered.
Another object of the invention is to provide a method wherein a location plan for carriers or similar traceable elements may be made during or prior to erection of a building or other structure, wherein the pathways of the various identifiable cables or the like may be developed and a record of the pathways may be placed in a retrievable memory, wherein a code referable to the location record may be prepared and reproduced at intervals along the length of various uniquely identified carriers to identify them uniquely according to their locations, and wherein the carriers may be cut to length and forwarded to the building location for installation according to the plan, aided by reference to the information contained in the record or memory of the location plan.
The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention are achieved in practice by providing a method of installing a plurality of carrier elements within a building structure, which method includes the steps of determining the intended locations of various carriers within the structure, formulating a record of such locations, assigning to each carrier a location code indicative of the record of the location points comprising its intended path within the structure, storing and retaining the record of the location information in an accessible memory means, such as in a written record or in the memory of a computer, reproducing at least portions of the codes on portions of each of the carrier elements, and installing each carrier element in the structure such that each carrier element follows its intended path, whereby each carrier element bears a unique code referable to a record disclosing its location path within the structure and so that access may be had to the carrier element at some or all points along its length, and so that the identity of any one carrier element may be determined by reference to the code. In those cases wherein the record of location points does not uniquely identify the carrier element, a separate identifying code element may be used.